Children At Heart
by Ink Stained Quill
Summary: Sometimes, it's a blessing to forget being a country and just live life, even if it is for a few precious stolen moments, because really, they are all children at heart. No pairings (except a little very light AusHun) and more characters than are listed. Just a little introspective character study. Enjoy!


**A/N: So, I have been absent from the writing spectrum for a while. I've been writing, but I haven't had time to finish and post anything! (Welcome to college Ink!) So this is just a little ditty to get me back into the scheme of things. This is unedited so please tell me if you find any mistakes and I shall go back and fix them. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: 'Tis disclaimed.**

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><p>On hot summer days, Veniziano liked to laze around. His afternoon siestas would become full day cat-in-a-patch-of-sunlight snoozes. His naturally olive skin would turn a healthy sun-kissed shade of brown, and no work would be done. But these days were few and far between. Often, his boss would interrupt with some paper or another to sign, another budget to oversee, another report demanded.<p>

Sometimes though, on a hot summer day, when Veniziano might have been found sleeping (or on the rare occasion, _working_), he would be gone. Awake and inspired, away over the fields. On those days, his paints would be missing, along with a wide floppy sun-hat that had seen better days, and an empty canvas or two. At Spain's house, he would knock at the door and wait for Romano to come out, dragging his protesting, grouching brother off to an empty corner of nature. There he would set up a single canvas and press paints and a brush into Romano's hands, taking up some in his own.

Slowly, remembering from a time long past, they would begin to spread colors over the white, mixing, dancing to form and explosion of life and wonder. Once or twice, Romano would grab Veniziano's hand and correct his technique instinctively; suddenly they were children again, Romano teaching his baby brother how to hold a paintbrush for the first time, how to make three colors into thirty.

{[o0O0o]}

England was an old man, or so he thought, watching every country he had raised flourish in the world with only nods to him in their school textbooks, not all complementary—and rightly so, he knew that now. Yet, in truth, he didn't feel old at all. So he drank tea from fine china and wore neat sweater vests, but what of it?

What of it, indeed, when his pirate clothes were still in pristine condition?

His crisp red coat fell neatly down to his metal tipped boots, and his plumed tri-corner hat sat jauntily—almost cockily—on his head. His sword gleamed at his waist, the scabbard shining in the light as he waited outside the door of Spain's house.

Spain looked shocked at first, dazed at this sudden blast from the past. England could almost see the memories of the Spanish Armada drifting through his mind, before a familiar excited, crazed glint came into his eyes. Spain turned and practically _flew_ upstairs, returning only a few moments later, dressed to the nines in his finest pirate regalia. It was clear they were kept in as much of an honored place as England's own. England could almost smell the salt of the sea and feel the sails whipping around overhead. Raising a single eyebrow lazily, Spain gave a feral grin waving England into the secluded back garden.

"_Inglaterra_," Spain drawled, pulling out a lethally sharp and shining silver sword.

Oh, how England had missed this!

{[o0O0o]}

Sometimes, on a Friday night perhaps, when America was feeling particularly stressed out and wanted to lash out at everyone because _damn it, it wasn't his fault_ and everyone was giving him hell for things he really couldn't control, there would be a knock at the door. He would stand up expecting yet another complaining face and on the way there he would vindictively fantasize about slamming the door on their noses. Most times it was guaranteed to end with yet another evening of just complaints and America praying for an anvil to fall on him, like one of those Saturday cartoons when they were still good.

But _sometimes_—_just sometimes_—it wouldn't be a griping politician. Sometimes, America would open the door to see one of his favorite people in the world standing on his porch, holding a hockey stick, a plate stacked with pancakes, dripping in maple syrup and fresh strawberries and powdered sugar, just like how America liked it. Canada's eyes would be filled with a challenging fire that the world rarely saw. In a flash, America would spin and grab his own hockey stick that would be left in the umbrella stand (yes, he still had an umbrella stand) in faint hope for nights like this.

So, he would clobbered, he knew that. But for once in a blue moon, it was just him and his brother, playing like they were ten-year-old kids in the chill of the night, with fresh hot comfort food to go home to, and everything was alright with the world.

{[o0O0o]}

Sometimes, Austria would relax, just a fraction, and let himself feel. For a nation that produced some of the greatest musicians, artists of emotion, he was an extremely high strung individual. He would relax, his shoulders dropping just a bit, as he looked at his most prized photos, displayed upon the mantel, and sometimes an idea that would normally make him blush would spring into his mind, and away he would go.

Hungary was a strong independent nation and woman who didn't really _need_ anyone, but that still wouldn't stop her heart from dancing and her excitement from mounting when she received a single red rose and a cryptic note written in a hand she knew as well as her own. She would lock her house, leaving only a hastily scribbled sticky note on her door for any visitor, before flying away in her chic sports car down to the river where she had first fallen in love with her former husband. And there he would be, as promised, waiting with the remaining ninety-nine roses. At any other time she would have laughed at him for being excessive, but at times like this, when far too long had passed without seeing him, she just threw herself at him, thanking fate that such a man was still devoted to her.

And for a few moments in their turbulent lives, they were just simple lovers again, with one hundred roses to say "I am yours forever".

{[o0O0o]}

Quite often, Prussia would pester Germany, because no one else could match him drink for drink (except maybe Russia, but he was one scary-as-hell bastard), but most of the time, Germany would be neck deep in work and act, as Prussia liked to put it, like a total stick-in-the-mud. But sometimes, Germany would give in, because, _hell_, work could wait for a few days. The two brothers would go out and get completely and utterly plastered, before coming home entirely satisfied and possibly scaring all their neighbors, although their neighbors really ought to have been used to their antics by now. Of course, Germany would curse Prussia for the next few days, because only when they went out together would Germany ever get a hangover. However, Prussia would be walking on air, thoroughly happy, and Germany, for all his irritation, never minded, because for a night they had just been two brothers getting happily drunk without a care in the world, and that was really quite nice.

{[o0O0o]}

Sometimes, China would forget, just for a little while, all his past troubles and his present worries and answer the phone, despite the caller ID. The soft Japanese voice on the other end, hesitatingly, apprehensive of the response, would ask in a roundabout way, if perhaps, China would be interested in having tea with him, and if he would like, even dinner. And China, despite the political and social animosity would just smile happily, even though Japan couldn't see him and say, "_Xie xie, dídí_".

{[o0O0o]}

Sometimes, Russia would calm down and run away from Moscow to Ukraine's house, and spend the day with her, just baking or watching a movie, or watching her knit what would eventually become another beloved scarf for him even if neither would admit it, and Ukraine, despite her initial fear, would let him stay, because she too knew that there were precious few moments when she could stop fighting an enemy and just mother the child who was once and—deep in their hearts—will always be her baby brother.

{[o0O0o]}

Being a permanent fixture in time, a vessel for all the joys and griefs and angers of an entire nation is wearying. Often, it is forgotten that each being is alive, with their own cares and worries and loves and thoughts. Most days they spend, bodies torn or healing from natural disasters and war. America still wakes up screaming some nights as phantom pains from 9/11 rip through his dreams and he goes to the mirror, sickly white, as he remembers the fateful day that left a sizable scar on his left shoulder. India hadn't felt such terror for a long time until she nearly felt the bullets rip through her and the screams echoing in her head during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Japan still sometimes feels sick when he thinks of the 2011 tsunami and the overwhelming choking feeling, as though he would never breathe again.

Fear, pain, anger, grief—years without end of being weighed down with the responsibility of millions. How many times have they come so close to throwing in the towel? Have they come to just ending it all? To the brink of madness, or have they already crossed that line?

Perhaps it is the madness, or perhaps it is that single moment of clarity that breaks through the barrier like sunrays on a cloudy day, that leads them to these moments of escape. Moments where they can blend with the people around them (_their people_) and pretend for a few glorious moments that they are leading normal everyday _boring_ lives, just forget everything.

Because they never asked for this. They never asked to be born immortal, unchanging, without a time to ever be a carefree child or a fun-loving youth. That was locked away since the beginning, tightly in the corner of their hearts, not to be acknowledged.

But like Pandora's box (or _pithos_ if you ask a defensive Greece) sometimes it will crack open just the slightest and pure innocence will leak into their lives, because really, despite the pain, and the war and fear, they still are children at heart.

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><p><strong>So that's that. I hope you enjoyed! P.S. I have a Franada AU in the works, and I would super much appreciate a beta so PM me if you're interested! <strong>


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